How to Ask Questions in Sign Language

Since we’ve already covered how to sign about animals in American Sign Language, I thought now would be a good time to talk about how to ask questions in sign language. That way, you can ask someone which animal they like and why.

Asking questions in sign language is a major part of learning to communicate with the deaf. Think about it: How much of our spoken conversations include questions? A lot! The same thing is true in ASL.

Here’s a primer on how to use questions in ASL!

How to Ask Questions in Sign Language

An important part of understanding how to use questions in ASL is getting a basic grasp on ASL grammar. American Sign Language is actually based on French, so it uses a similar sentence structure.

For example, in English, we place adjectives before nouns. We speak of the “red bicycle” and the “tall tree”. In ASL, though, we put the noun ahead of the adjective: “bicycle red” or “tree tall“.

In ASL, we generally place question words at the end of the sentence. So, if you were going to ask, “What time is your appointment?”, you would sign “Your appointment time what?” That means you’ll have to watch an entire sentence before you actually know for sure it’s a question.

Another tip for asking questions in ASL is that your face should look quizzical. So, you’ll want to raise your eyebrows and lean forward a little bit to make sure that your audience knows you’re asking a question.

To give you a more visual look at this concept, watch the following video to learn how to sign common question words, such as: who, what, when, where, why, what’s up, and how.

Comments

Hi! I followed a link to this site because, as a sign language interpreter of almost 20 years, I am always interested in improving my skills.
I just wanted to mention that with “WH” questions, your eyebrows should go down, and questions that you answer with a yes/no your eyebrows should go up. A quick youtube search shows many examples of Deaf ASL signers explaining this.
Good luck with your videos. I’m always happy to see people learning how to communicate with the Deaf!

That noun action was confusing to me when I first learned sign language. I understood the reason for it but my mind just didn’t work that way, lol! I took two years of sign language and I have lost most of it because I didn’t use it enough.

One of my best friends is an ASL teacher. Her husband is deaf and I see him almost every day because I watch their daughter after school and he gets off work first. Sometimes we talk in sign language but most times we don’t as he reads lips and talks very clearly, and my ASL is rusty. I usually include a few signs in my conversations with him.

We have a deaf church that uses our church to meet in, and some of the parents bring their kids to Awana. So I chat with them in the most basic way that my skills allow and they are always very patient with me . I’ve been wanting to improve my skills though so I loved your post today. Thanks for linking up to “Making Your Home Sing Monday.”

This is so wonderful! My girls LOVE signing. I started teaching them sign just add a tactile aspect to learning the alphabet, but they’ve taken it far beyond that. Since they love it so much, it’s on my plan to get serious about learning sign this summer. I’m pinning your post so I have a reference later, can’t wait to explore all these resources. A BIG thank you for posting this! 🙂

This is AWESOME! Thank you for sharing with us at Mommy Monday! 🙂
I hate to admit this, but I started teaching my babies how to sign and just stopped. I really wish I hadn’t. Maybe I should start up again, I don’t know how to sign, I was learning along with them.
XOXO